SEAGuide
The Seattle Soft Serve Power Rankings
photo credit: Nate Watters
We like to think that all ice creams are special and amazing, but soft serve is in an elite league of its own. It’s creamy, smooth, and isn’t as intense as a regular scoop if your teeth are sensitive to cold stuff. While Seattle doesn’t have a ton of it, there are enough places serving swirled frozen dairy (and in some cases, the lack of dairy) to rank the very best. You can find textbook vanilla cones, matcha flavors, and other tasty options all around town, proving that OK, thank goodness, there’s actually plenty of great soft serve to enjoy.
Prefer scoops? Check out our full guide to The Best Ice Cream In Seattle.
THE SPOTS
If the "Got Milk" white-mustachioed celebrity athletes and promises of strong bones and teeth don’t get you extremely hyped to guzzle some liquid calcium, allow us to introduce you to Indigo Cow. It’s a soft serve window in Wallingford that sources its dairy specifically from Hokkaido to make unflavored ice cream. Apparently, these Japanese cows know something the American ones don’t, because the end result is a barely-there sweetness and a refreshing texture that prompts a line to form down the block regardless of the thermostat reading outside. The ice cream is perfect plain, but just as excellent with toppings like Theo’s dark chocolate dip or brown sugar syrup with nutty roasted soybean powder. And if you're a swirl-only person, they'll often have a second flavor like black sesame or matcha.
photo credit: The Pastry Project
The Pastry Project is not a shop—it's an organization in Pioneer Square that provides baking training to those who face barriers. And in the summer on weekends, their front door turns into a soft serve window, selling cones, cups, ice cream cakes, and cookie sandwiches. While they typically have standard flavors like (purple) vanilla and chocolate, they're delicious, and made even better when loaded with The Pastry Project's homemade peanut crunch topping—which tastes like the middle of a Butterfinger bar but won't stick to every single molar in your mouth.
photo credit: Nate Watters
#3
One of the best spots in town for sashimi, dumplings, and marinated wagyu cooked on a sizzling hot rock unveiled a soft serve operation known as Baiten. Whereas other spots in town obsess over inventive base flavors, Baiten sticks with a classic, mellow vanilla—and gets wild with the toppings instead. You'll find syrups ranging from black sesame to thick mango jelly, sundaes involving mochi and cookies, and iced hoji latte floats. We like to keep it simple with their matcha syrup, which is deeply bracing and counteracts the sweetness pretty perfectly.
Matcha Man used to be a pop-up, and while it sure was fun chasing them around the Puget Sound, it's even better to know that we can stop in their Georgetown shop anytime (well, during opening hours at least) for a freshly-griddled taiyaki with excellent matcha soft serve dispensed inside. The green tea ice cream is clearly the standout, but we'd use their cereal milk flavor in our morning Cornflakes every day if we could.
photo credit: Nate Watters
The custardy vanilla soft serve at Flora Bakehouse is light enough to eat before a hike and served at a vegetarian bakery that has an urban rooftop garden—it doesn’t get more PNW than that, folks. And when their rhubarb sundae is in season, it's a winner. It has ribbons of gingery rhubarb compote and crunched-up meringue parfait-style with the ice cream, which is a great tribute to the fact that Washington is the top producer of rhubarb in the US. Note that if you're a rhubarb-hater, you can also get their soft serve pumped into a hollowed-out croissant.
The affogato is a genius invention. But when you swap out gelato for velvety soft serve, which is exactly what's happening at Mainstay Provisions, it's even better. Since this cafe's freshly-piped vanilla is so smooth and porous, the hot espresso poured on top steeps each bite, flavoring the ice cream throughout with bittersweet latte essence. When you require dessert and caffeination all at once, it hits just right.
photo credit: Brooke Fitts
If you almost skipped this guide because you keep a Lactaid sewn into your pants pocket at all times, just wait. This whimsical coffee shop in Mt. Baker serves vegan soft serve every day. That's right—all three flavors are made with oat milk, so no need to work a “dairy day” into your schedule. While you can pass on the overwhelmingly oaty and sweet vanilla, the chocolate and orange creamsicle flavors are both rich and refreshing. Order it piped into a birthday cake, blue corn, or orange cone. Those are totally vegan, too.
Milk Drunk on Beacon Hill deserves to be here for their chocolate soft serve alone. It’s a little malty, not too sweet, and pairs really well with an order of mozzarella sticks dipped in herby green aioli. In addition to vanilla and malted chocolate, this fried chicken sandwich shop serves two rotating vegan flavors (some examples are coconut fig and rainier cherry), and they’re so good that we sometimes crave those over the dairy options.
#9
If you're not familiar with flavor burst soft serve, that's probably because Moto—a Detroit-style pizza shop in West Seattle—is the only place in town where we've seen it (aside from their outpost at T-Mobile Park). Imagine a regular soft serve machine, with flavored syrups pumped into the ridges, causing, well, bursts of flavor. You get it now. Anyway, there's nothing quite like creamy cold vanilla with a karate chop of artificial blue raspberry essence. Ask Lee (the owner) to top yours with his homemade chili crisp—it's spicy, tingly, loaded with crispy garlic chips, and works surprisingly well as a topping.
photo credit: Nate Watters
#10
The soft serve flavors at this sit-down Jamaican-inspired restaurant change weekly and range from apple pie to wedding cake, and we advise you to please save room for it after your meal or alongside a waffle during Drag Brunch. Consider a swirl, since the two flavors always complement each other—like the heat and salt of ras el hanout cooled down by buttery white chocolate.
photo credit: Aimee Rizzo
You may know this Filipino bakery in the ID for its mini purple cheesecakes, but they also offer purple soft serve in warmer months. Hood Famous' summer ice cream comes in both ube and sweetened condensed milk flavors, and a swirl of both has a great tang and subtle salty notes that pair perfectly with a toasty ube cookie shoved on top. Or better yet, make a sandwich with two of them.
#12
At this Indian counter on Capitol Hill, you can eat delicious kathi rolls stuffed with things like fried aloo tikki or fresh crumbly paneer—as well as fries dipped in a fantastic green chutney. But afterwards, you should eat a cup of housemade soft serve. Their bases feature flavors like coconut cardamom or mango, and sometimes they’ll have special sundaes, like vanilla ice cream with hot fudge and roasted peanuts. It’s the best way to cool off after experiencing the happy heat of Spice Waala’s chicken tikka roll.
Nana's in South Lake Union is another great option for matcha soft serve. It’s quite balanced—the bitterness of the green tea is toned down perfectly without being sickly sweet. We love it especially when swirled with vanilla and/or eaten with an entire slice of matcha pound cake shoved on top.
Enjoying a huge cup of Atulea's soft serve is like eating a frozen cloud—it's the lightest and fluffiest of any of the options on this guide. And while the flavors rotate at this Capitol Hill tea cafe, the typical matcha and blue butterfly pea-stained mint is a fantastic combination. A swirl of them both is equal parts creamy and refreshing, complete with grassy matcha balanced by a subtle minty zing.
Pick Quick's soft serve is creamy, not too sweet, and cement-thick. That’s totally a good thing—it stands up to chocolate dips, warm caramel, and/or a cup of fizzy root beer. This stuff is an ideal third wheel to a double cheeseburger and hand-cut fries, and more importantly, will not melt too much while you eat those other things.
#16
Here’s our constructive criticism of soft serve in Seattle—the portions are a little small for what you pay. However, that couldn’t be farther from the truth at King’s Deli, a corner convenience store in the Central District that serves ice cream among trays of fried chicken and jojos. For only $2, you get a massive cone of delicious, drippy vanilla or chocolate (we prefer the vanilla here). On a hot day when you need to cool off, scrape together a few quarters and go to King’s for some sweet, momentary bliss.
